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Wednesday, February 4, 2015

What She Left Behind, by Ellen Marie Wiseman

Description from Goodreads: In this stunning new novel, the
acclaimed author of THE PLUM TREE merges the past and present into a haunting
story about the nature of love and loyalty—and the lengths we will go to
protect those who need us most.

Ten years ago, Izzy Stone’s mother fatally shot her father
while he slept. Devastated by her mother’s apparent insanity, Izzy, now
seventeen, refuses to visit her in prison. But her new foster parents,
employees at a local museum, have enlisted Izzy’s help in cataloging items at a
long-shuttered state asylum. There, amid piles of abandoned belongings, Izzy
discovers a stack of unopened letters, a decades old journal, and a window into
her own past.

Clara Cartwright, eighteen years old in 1929, is caught between
her overbearing parents and her love for an Italian immigrant. Furious when she
rejects an arranged marriage, Clara’s father sends her to a genteel home for
nervous invalids. But when his fortune is lost in the stock market crash, he
can no longer afford her care—and Clara is committed to the public asylum.

Even as Izzy deals with the challenges of yet another new
beginning, Clara’s story keeps drawing her into the past. If Clara was never
really mentally ill, could something else explain her own mother’s violent act?
Piecing together Clara’s fate compels Izzy to re-examine her own choices—with shocking
and unexpected results.

Illuminating and provocative, WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND is a
masterful novel about the yearning to belong—and the mysteries that can belie
even the most ordinary life.

My Review:

Wow, just, wow, this book is great! I wasn’t expecting so
many holding my breath moments. It always fascinates and horrifies me to learn
of the treatment in some of these so called hospitals and the reasons so many
women were put into these places. Poor Clara all she did was fall in love with
a man her father didn’t approve of so she was locked up and lied about and left
there with no-one to turn to, in 1929 this was okay for a father to do to his
child. Clara starts out in a little better place at least she had one nice
nurse but when the crash hits and her father can no longer pay the bill Clara
ends up in Willard hospital a state run home that is an awful, awful place! In the present day we have Izzie, she is a
foster child whose mother is in prison for killing her father her foster
parents are doing a project on Willard for the local museum and when Izzie
finds Clara’s diary she becomes fascinated with learning more about this woman.
Both of these stories are interesting Clara’s more so but there are parts of
Izzie’s story that will break your heart too.

This book grabbed me right from the beginning and didn’t let
go till the end it was never boring and there were times I was yelling at my
ipod because of things that happened to Clara and Bruno. I was surprised at how
invested I got in these characters and that there were some really intense
scenes I wasn’t expecting.

Loved the ending …Oh Clara!

If you are a fan of The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox I’d say
to give this one a try, you won’t be disappointed.